'We Can't Keep Up': Oysters In High Demand After State Lifts COVID Restrictions
DUXBURY (CBS) - What did you miss most during the dark days of the pandemic? Friends and family? The gym? How about oysters?
It seems there's now a rush on eating oysters. Maybe pent-up demand? "When the pandemic hit, it was devastating," said Don Merry of Merry Oysters in Duxbury. "Now we're in a situation where we can't keep up. Literally the demand is really intense."
When the state lifted its COVID restrictions, restaurants went back into high gear, making up for a lost 15 months.
And it's been a boom for oyster farmers, who were watching their oysters die on the vine. "It is a crop and it grows," said Merry. "It can outgrow its prime size."
But now, the oyster farmers in Duxbury are working overtime, supplying restaurants in Boston and New York. "Behind that is a pent-up demand to go out," said Bill Weiss of Island Creek Oysters. "Oysters are such a community-based food."
So the oyster-processing shacks in Duxbury Bay are going at full tilt, to the point where some are now keeping an eye to the winter, wondering if their supply will be outstripped by demand. "We're in the moment right now," says Weiss.